


Wake Me When Tomorrow Ends

by CassanderRoshack



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Character Death, Copyright, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Gen, Gore, Horror, M/M, Multi, Original work - Freeform, Other, Real Life, Sex, Travel, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, horror story, lots of death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-10-06
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:25:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4881940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassanderRoshack/pseuds/CassanderRoshack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fox's life couldn't get much worse in her opinion. Her family was in shambles after her father became ill, her brothers became trouble-makers at school and for the community, and her mother found solace in the bottom of a bottle. Her only escape was college and the hope for a brighter future. All good goals for a girl of only nineteen.</p><p>Until a certain zombie apocalypse stole everything and more from her. Fox escapes with her life from her safe haven of Wellington Gorge Community College and travels home to see the unthinkable. In a hope to find others- or even a future away from the gaping maw of death itself, she meets a few unlikely friends along the way to reestablish hope and restore humanity. One survivor and one step at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is completely the work of me, Cassander Roshack (established pen name), and belongs to no other. This was originally written on 10/2011 and is currently being rewritten. I gladly accept constructive criticism and would love to hear your opinions on the story. Thank you and I hope you enjoy this work.

_October 15 th, 2019_

_It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sit down and write in a journal. With everything that has been happening since two years ago, I doubted I would ever live to see today at all. Some would say I should be counting my blessings and possibly become a nun in thanks to god that I survived. Well needless to say, I’m not wasting my time. What I write in this journal are my recollections about the events leading up to date. My name is Fox, one of the leaders of the Sahara Survivors. It isn’t my real name obviously. There isn’t anyone left alive to know my real name, so I don’t see the point in using it any longer. I don’t regret changing it either._

_Two years ago, everyone’s life on the face of the planet was thrown into chaos. I'm not going to bore you with the fine details; I'm not sure I can even remember them all at this point._  
  
 _It was worse even before that though. Natural disasters were common all over Earth by 2016. Plagues swept across Northern America and Europe. South American was gone in nearly a week by a large volcano erupting and most of Southeast Asia had been sunk beneath the waves from the Pacific Ocean. Russia had cut itself off from all communication when a dictator took over in 2015. The only ones that weren’t dying or being caught in some freak accident- least not recently- was Japan. For lack of better words, the entire world went to hell._  
  
_Things were simple back then, simple for me and a few others. All I had to do was wake up in the morning, make good grades in school, come home and take care of the family, maybe eat and maybe sleep. Back then I hoped I’d become a doctor or something fairly important that would support my family’s already massive medical debts. My father had lung cancer, in the final stages. The hospital had sent him home to be with our family before he died. The medical bills were threatening to have our home taken away and my college education was not making things easier._

 _Thanks to my long hours poring over dusty textbooks for high school- that really didn’t actually help me in the long run, I had graduated early to spend more time at home with my family. I was around the age of seventeen, fresh out of grade school and having my scholarship money that I nearly had to rob the bank of to get was keeping a roof over our heads. My mother was trying to get her nursing degree and was spending her days working and taking care of my father and nights in school. My twin younger brother’s weren’t making things much easier either since they had started high school. I wanted to just get away from it all and leave- though I never wanted it the way it happened._  
  
_Things were grimmer than anyone realized though, on January 4 th of 2017, North American soon got a taste of what was rumored to be going on in Europe. No one believed that people were actually eating each other and becoming numb to everything around them except to hunt other people. If someone would have believed, I can only imagine how many lives we could have saved and resources gathered. A friend of mine once said, “Every single human you save is one less of the dead to eat you in your sleep”. At the time, every county besides the States was going completely insane. Canada and the United States seemed immune and started to take immigrants in that weren’t infected. Or so we thought._  
  
_It was nameless and fast in its spread across the world. Before anyone realized that it was here, it had us all in its claws before the first week we started to take refugees. It took out the military, whose focus was on the treatment of the refugees. Then it spread after that to larger cities then smaller towns and rural areas. It hit my town of Wellington Gorge early, giving no warning at all.  My experiences were ones I will never forget and will haunt me for the rest of my life. This is long story, a two year long one, which in the end has an almost happy ending._  
 _If you believe in those, that is._  
  
_-Fox_


	2. Beginnings

Silence filled the air as Fox walked to her first college class of the new year. The campus wasn’t as large as some compared to other large cities. She put one foot in front of the other a bit tiredly, looking up at the four buildings resting in a circle around a main office building that seemed oddly small. The sidewalk was warm beneath her sneakers from the sun on this unusually warm morning. She neared it, squinting hard to look up at the number engraved into the side of the building. Even though it was tall, it didn’t protect her from the sun completely. With a sigh, she muttered to herself, “Why did I have to choose a college so far from home?” There was a dull ache in her legs by this point, having walked almost three miles from her home in West Wellington. It had already been a problematic morning and she gave her hair a brief sniff when she was sure no one was looking.

            Her father had gotten ill off of his pain medication again, and had started throwing up. She had been forced to help him since her mother had gotten to the point she was so exhausted she couldn’t budge from the couch- not to mention she was sobbing again and Fox would rather deal with bile than a crying mother. Not to mention her younger brothers, Jeff and Joe, had to be taken to school now because they were removed from the bus due to a small ‘scuffle’ in their terms. There was a frown on her face as she walked up the hill toward the entrance, eyes narrowed at her sneakers for a moment. If her father still had any strength left in him, he would discipline them. But unfortunately that hadn’t happened in a while.

            With a glance, she almost forgot about her problems as she saw her nearly lifelong friend Kahlilia waving at her from the top of her climb. She put on a smile before a smell assaulted her nose so badly she had to put a hand over her face. “Christ-“ Fox gagged, looking around for the source of the smell. There was flies off to the side of the concrete and she leaned a little to look at it. Kahlilia came down to meet her curiously and then backed away with hand on her mouth too. “Oh poor thing, it probably hit the side of the building.” She commented, looking down at it, “I’ll tell the teacher when we get into class now they can call a janitor to clean it up.” Bloody things made Fox’s stomach churn involuntarily, and thus she nearly started climbing up the stairs without her. “Come on, I want to get away from it.”

            Fox reached the top, glancing back down as she did as her friend went past her seeing her boyfriend now waiting by the door of their classroom, nestled between building one and three. His parents were teachers at the college, so they would often let Kahilia and her into the room before other students. In actuality, Fox was only doing this because she needed an elective and Kahilia had talked her into it. Fox had plans for a criminal justice degree, much different than Kahilia’s degree in zoology, but had convinced herself that she could put it toward a K9 unit if she really had to mention it in the future.

            Jacob, Kahilia’s boyfriend, had let them in this morning instead of one of his parents. “Dad is running behind. I’ve got his spare key.” He explained as he unlocked the classroom door and slipped inside to hold the door open for them both. Fox nodded, having that be the only sign that she had heard him at all. Despite their mutual friend, Fox and Jacob didn’t often see eye to eye. And when they did, it was fleeting. They all sat in the front row, Kahilia between the two of them as. She giggled like a madman at a joke he told to the point there was an awkward silence between them before he started to go into a recount of his last rugby match, much to Fox’s eyeroll. He put an arm around her, and Fox looked away. If a teacher had been there, Kahilia would have shrugged it off immediately. Jacob was pushy for both of their tastes and Fox knew perfectly well what Kahilia was planning to do after class that day.

            Jacob’s father walked in and the arm around Kahilia instantly disappeared. Fox sighed, putting her chin in her open palm in the classic ‘thinker’ pose. Jacob stood to help his father and Fox wondered briefly why they hadn’t broken up already. Immediately her question was answered as a piece of paper came sliding across the mahogany joint work desk. _“He’s going to yell a lot.”_ Fox read over it calmly and licked her lips. She wrote back carefully, making sure to avoid Jacob’s gaze. _“Of course he is. Do you want me to stay with you just in case?”_ Kahilia let out a slow breath beside her and the paper came skidding back. _“Yes, please.”_ Fox didn’t pass it back and crumbled it as Jacob’s father, Mr. Monroe, asked them how they were doing as he let the rest of the students in for class. It wasn’t an extraordinary large class, but about medium size with about twenty students. Fox smiled at a rare student that she knew before turning her head back to her homework that she pulled out and placed in front of her. Just because they had come back from Christmas holidays and New Year’s, didn’t mean they didn’t have a ton of homework to do.

            It wasn’t too long after the lesson had started for the day that the intercom went off above them. Fox frowned, expecting someone’s name to be called and stopped writing her very type-writer like notes. There was a bit of static and a mildly panicking woman started to make an announcement. Her pen lifted, not to leave a mark on the white paper as she turned the page. “Teachers and students, please do not be alarmed.” As she said this, glass broke in the background and someone screamed, and her voice got worse, “We need everyone to please evacuate at once- this is not a drill!” She started to yell and someone told her to move before there was a snarling sound almost like a dog. There was a piercing scream and the intercom went off like it had never turned on at all.

            The room was completely silent before hushed and worried talking broke out to fill the room. Jacob half stood to talk to his father and Kahlilia looked at them with frightened eyes, “What the hell was that?” She whispered to no one in particular and one of the students asked if this was a prank. A announcement yelling ‘surprise’ never came and soon Jacob’s father was herding everyone out of the door to the parking-lot. Some of the classes were already waiting there, and Fox followed Kahilia who was all but being dragged by Jacob out. There was a group of teachers screaming at each other and Fox heard bits and pieces, frowning hard at the words. There were a lot of other conversations going as well from the students; everyone was worried.

            Fox’s fingers gripped the edge of Kahlilia’s jacket, making sure not to lose her in the frightened and angry crowd that was growing by the moment. Her eyes looked around to each person, eyes squinting at the sun. There was a small circle of teachers ahead of them, their voices growing louder and louder. Jacob’s father joined them and Fox bit her lip. “Andrew please calm down, the students are getting more scared the more you yell!” The woman was on Fox only knew from walking Kahlilia to class back and forth. The man who was yelling she didn’t know at all; her eyes were drawn to the bloody bandage around his arm though. “I will not calm down! The students are eating each other! EATING!” He bellowed and many students backed away from him as he seemed to grow more agitated and angry.

            Another teacher spoke up, a small man with cracked glasses. “All the phone lines are busy including the police. I don’t know what’s causing the students to turn on each other. But I can’t help but think what’s going on in Europe has come here-“ Andrew grabbed the man’s shirt front, “This is America, nothing from that god forsaken place crossed the ocean to make it here! We’re not fucking zombies!” He shook him and the smaller of the two tried to pry away his hand. “I was only-“ Someone from the other side of the crowd from where they were started screaming. Their side grew quiet as students started rushing toward them, all starting to scream too. Fox got a brief glimpse between the legs and bodies and put a hand over her mouth. She didn’t wait to see more before she gripped Kahlilia’s hand; the woman had been frozen in the spot beside her.

            Fox ran with the crowd, not fighting a river to go back toward whatever it was that she had seen on the ground gnawing into the neck of her chemistry instructor. She only spared one glance behind her, which only speeded her sprint toward the parking-lot below. There were people crawling, walking and running out of the college compass toward the bottom of the hill where the students had been escaping toward. Kahlilia had breathlessly pointed toward her car at the far end of the parking-lot and Fox changed direction at the last minute, feeling someone’s hand try to snatch at her ponytail. People were screaming among the roars that sounded so inhuman she couldn’t relate it to anything she had heard so far in her life. Kahlilia searched her pockets for the keys and looked back at the college. Fox didn’t wait for her to acknowledge she had left in her backpack- she already had a feeling. Her elbow smashed into the driver’s side door and climbed in to quickly unlock the passenger’s side door.

            Kahlilia didn’t complain about the broken window as she climbed into the car. Her parents bought her a new one when she came to college and she still had one at home that was perfectly good. Two students and a teacher slammed into the window of the passenger side door and Kahlilia let out a scream of terror as Fox put the luxury sedan into gear just as the window cracked underneath their pounding fists and foreheads. She tried to avoid hitting anyone who wasn’t trying to kill anyone, but it was too difficult in the mass panic and a few people, whether they were zombies or not left undetermined, went under the tires. Medians were jumped multiple times and they swerved down the hill to make it to the main road leading back into town. Kahlilia hyperventilated next to her and Fox reached a hand over to grip her shoulder, feeling panicked herself. “Keep it together.” She whispered to Kahlilia, but meant it for herself as well. The girl nodded her head a few times, braids coming down in front of her face and she pushed them back.

            Kahlilia didn’t live far from the college and the car was starting to sputter from whatever it had sucked up in the engine. The woman didn’t spend time wondering what that was either. They took several side streets because of the traffic that seemed to sit idle in the lines. It felt as though they were both losing their minds, and they didn’t voice their concerns aloud out of fear they may become real with their utterance. Fox swallowed hard as they drove up to see her home. The curtains moved a little and Fox figured her mother and father were both home from work still for this time of year. She swallowed hard, feeling her chest tighten. Kahlilia reached across the expansion of the car and hugged her around the neck. “It’s okay.” She whispered, “Take the car and get to your parents.” Kahlilia pulled back and Fox nodded, “You better go. Your family is probably scared too.” She didn’t move out of the car and her blue eyes looked down. That was one of her best features and Fox cocked her head to the side a bit, “Are we ever going to see each other again?”

            “Of course.” She tried to smile but it didn’t reach any real distance. Kahilia left the car at that and Fox looked over her, “Hey.” Kahilia held the door open and looked back at her, “Stay alive for me. Avoid the main roads and stay away from populated areas.” She laughed and Fox paused, “I’m sorry, I just remembered back in high school you were so convinced the apocalypse was going to happen eventually. I guess you were right.” Fox blinked, looking around them to check finally if they had anyone nearby. The street was blissfully empty. “I never actually wanted this to happen.” The younger girl smiled a bit, “I know… God always said we should never know when the world would end. We still don’t. Go, we both have people to look after.” Fox nodded, not arguing for once about the basis of religion. Everyone needed something to believe in she supposed. She quickly took off one her bangles- large thick silver ones that her parents had given her for a birthday present a few years ago. “I want to know it’s you when I see you again.” She whispered and Kahilia slipped it onto her wrist with a nod.

            Against every fiber of Fox’s body, she drove away once she knew Kahilia was safe inside. Her father was a doctor, and her mother a nurse. They would be fine. That was what she told herself at least. Fox swallowed as she continued to drive, seeing wrecks in the middle of the streets and pets without their owners wandering around. It seemed like the entire world was falling entirely too fast. She had a sudden realization that her brothers were in a school very much like the college and what happened there could happen to them. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and kept driving, seeing a light turn green in the intersection in front of her she didn’t bother to even look. Fox didn’t get time to realize her mistake, as a car blew through the intersection at the same time and smashed into the driver’s side door.


	3. The Twins

The heat radiated from the concrete and all around her. It was more than likely the thing that woke her from her unconscious state. Rancid smells were around her; ones of oil and cooking flesh. Her eyes burnt as soon as she opened them, smoke in the air. Fox coughed, squinting her eyes against the burn, feeling her body ache incredibly. There was wetness on her shoulder and it took a few moments to process that it was actually blood and not drool from a nap in the hammock of her backyard. There was glass in her lap, and she groaned, moving her head around to see where she actually was. The windows were knocked out or shattered, and the smoke was coming from the other car’s engine that was on fire. In a moment of clarity, she scrambled to get her safety belt off, that she had completely forgotten about.

            She crawled out of the window when the door refused to open after unlocking it multiple times. Underestimating the distance from the window to the ground, she hit her injured shoulder on the glass on the ground. Her hands came up to lift herself up on shaking legs. For the briefest of moments she nearly sat down and cried from the pain in now her hands on top of whatever had happened to her shoulder. A feeble cry for help rang out before she bothered to look back at the other car. Fox swallowed hard, tearing up as she came closer to the vehicle, wondering if the car had something wrong with it to cause the crash or if the driver was dead… She timidly knocked on the glass, then louder.

            A bloody hand slammed against the window and she gave a start. A pair of smaller ones joined after a second in the backseat. Fox gasped, shaking from head to toe. After the redhead yanked on the driver’s side door handle a few times, she determined that if she got the child out perhaps she could help the driver. “Hold on- I’ll get you out.” She tried to tell them through the window as the beating continued. They were probably choking on the smoke as much as she was. The backseat door opened with a hard pull and the inhabitant fell out.

            She covered her mouth, backing away quickly. It crawled out of the door, leaving a trail of intestines behind it. It looks at her with blood shot and yellow bruised eyes, one eye pushed back into its skull from force of impact when the car hit hers. Fox’s brain hyper analyzed it much to her rising disgust. It was perhaps the size of a child and was completely missing it’s lower half, facing oozing some sort of yellow green puss without stretched fingers at her sneakers. She continued backing away, bile rising in her throat each moment. Smoke was flowing out of the now open car door, giving her a clear view of the driver that was missing her jaw- which lay in the seat beside her. Finally she couldn’t hold down her breakfast and she puked, knees weakening.   
  
            Twisting away, she ran away from the scene, hands outstretched toward her. There was pain in her shoulder and a burn in her throat, her clothing was bloody and now had the stench of stomach acid and death on her. Words along the lines of ‘terrible’, ‘unfair’, and ‘impossible’ floated around in her head as she went through the empty streets of Wellington Gorge toward the high school. She knew the way by heart, having walked the streets for nearly twenty years for Halloween, Christmas and high school band attended parades. Her sneakers made twin smacking sounds as she sped up, feeling like she was being watched from all sorts of directions. She saw more of those… people? Things? What exactly had happened to them? Of course she had seen zombie movies but- the idea of being dead and having body function was literally… completely impossible. And yet Fox was looking at a group of people who were missing various body parts and skin milling about without a care in the world.

            She took a deep breath, nearly gagging at the smell a second later, before continuing to run. The idea of ‘fast food’ entered her mind as she ran from what she had seen of these… she supposed calling them infected would be the best idea- earlier. She easily went around them and kept running despite the burn in his chest that seemed to be spreading. It was still cold, and not the best weather to be doing a few mile sprint in. But she would have taken that over the sight of her old high school. Fox let out a strangled breath, blinking at the building in shock. The school had one large main building connecting into two wings that formed an ‘L’ shape around the parking-lot and stadium. Bodies of both teachers and students lay scattered about one the ground. Some were shot, others were trampled, others just looked like they might have been sleeping. Fox knew better and swallowed, stepping carefully around the myriad of bodies that lay around. She was more worried about one of them deciding to grab her from where they lay, but kept glancing up for the color shirts she knew her brothers were wearing.

            Despite their trouble making nature, they did like their high school. They had been wearing their matching football jerseys today. Joe always wore orange, while Jeff wore purple; which were the school colors. Her heart grew heavier and heavier as she walked, knowing some of the kids that she passed from her brother’s friendships and late study nights at their house. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a girl she was trying to step over let out a moan. Fox swallowed as she removed her foot from near her mouth and bit her lip, “Hey… are you alright?” She asked and kept her distance a bit. As much as there was a real possibility that this girl was bit… she didn’t want to leave a possible girl who was still alive in the middle of this mess… one who might know which way her brothers were too instead of potentially opening up countless doors with nothing but flesh eating monsters behind them.

            Her brown eyes opened slowly before focusing on her, they immediately dilated and started to move away from her. “Hey- hey!” Fox tried to calm her with her hands raised in the air in a universal ‘I’m not armed’ gesture. The girl looked over her with frightened eyes and Fox tried to smile, “What’s your name? I’m Jeff and Joe Davis’ sister, call me Fox.” The girl looked around at all the bodies around her, and her eyes were practically rolling around in their sockets like she was looking for invisible creatures. “Be-Beverly…” She whispered and Fox smiled at her fully now, glad she still have enough sense to know her own name after what she had probably saw. Hell, Fox was surprised she was still keeping it together after everything. “That’s a great name. Can you tell me what happened here?” She could make all the educated guesses she wanted, but in the end it didn’t help her find her brothers. Maybe the teachers had formed some sort of escape plan and it had only gone wrong near the end. “Everything happened so fast… People started fighting each other! Biting and clawing and ripping each other apart and- and-…” She started to sob and curl up on the ground. Beverly had footprints all over her and Fox couldn’t help but swallow, realizing she’d practically been trampled on while whoever was left ran for their lives. “It’s over now, Beverly. I need to find my brothers but I’m not gonna leave you here. So you’re coming with me.” She whispered, gingerly placing a hand on her arm to help her stand.   
  
            It did occur to her that she might have been bitten, but she ignored it completely. Bitten or not, she would deal with that when the time came- if it came at all. Beverly continued to sob as she was pulled to her feet. “Just stay close and…. Try not to keep crying okay? I know it’s hard but we need to be quiet.” It made sense they were attracted to noise; it was a theory but she didn’t want to test it while she was weaponless with a apparently wounded survivor with her. She nodded vigorously and gripped the elastic part of the bottom of Fox’s jacket. She walked with a slight limp and she had to stop a few times to catch her breath. There was a moment when they made it halfway down the first hallway where Fox had to ask if she was alright and she didn’t reply.

            Honestly, Fox hadn’t even bothered to look at her shoulder that still ached. She been too busy dealing with the situation at hand than to be overly concerned about it. The front doors were barricaded shut and she didn’t want to make the noise to break in. So instead made her way toward the East Wing’s side entrance for the bus circle. “When we get inside; I going to take you to the nurse’s office. Wait for me there.” Beverly stopped and it in-turn made Fox stop from the death grip the other girl had on her jacket. “I don’t want to be left alone!” Her objection was loud and Fox hushed her with a hand motion, “Fine- Fine, you can come along but you have to be quiet. You think trampling students are bad, try having one of these things chase you.” She shivered at the thought- trying to put the college far, far out of her mind. Beverly apparently didn’t have that ability and started crying again, though it was significantly quieter than before. Fox wouldn’t say aloud she was getting tired of her by this point, but had enough pity to not say anything more about her issues dealing with the situation. Who knew what she saw…  
  
            They made inside more easily than she thought she would, and went down the halls as fast as Beverly could with her limp. It mostly just seemed like Fox was dragging her through a now scarily empty school. The nurses office wasn’t that far, only a few rooms down from the East Wing’s entrance on the left; not to mention easily located by the giant orange and purple sign with an arrow pointing to it. The doors all had windows built in to see inside the room and Fox made good use of it, checking the inside thoroughly before ushering her companion inside. The seats that lined the room were still the old over-comfortable plush stuffed ones that she had sat in whenever she’d hurt herself. Which was quite a lot in high school unfortunately. Fox felt her chest pull as she saw the name plate behind a class incased secretary office that took up the other half of the room. Doctor Reed was one of the nicest women she had ever known, and had even helped her with homework when she waited for her parents to pick her up from school because of various injuries.

            “What’s wrong with you?” Fox asked over her shoulder, reaching through the glass window where there was a small opening to grab the key taped underneath the desk for the door. Thankfully, the old doctor’s habits hadn’t changed in the last few years, and she ripped it off from the underside. “My ankle is really sore.” She muttered, sniffing a bit. “Do you have any tissues?” She added, looking around. Fox went to the door that opened into the nurse’s actual office and unlocked it easily stepping inside. There was a counter and a few seats for examination. Fox had always thought it looked more like a place to examine pets more than children, but had never told Reed or anyone else that. There was a medical cabinet on the wall and she let out a breath. Whatever was in there she might need, especially if the entire town was like the school.

            As soon as she rounded the center island she gave a start as she nearly stepped on someone. A student laid where Reed’s roller seat usually would have been with his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. His breathing was shallow and didn’t react to Fox leaning over him. Beverly whispered loudly from behind her, “What is it?” The redhead glanced back at the girl before nudging the other student with her foot. He never moved or blinked and Fox sighed, “Come here, there is someone here but he isn’t dead. You know him?” She limped over to the other side of the counter and looked over it at the boy. “His name is Danny. We had calculus together.” Beverly murmured, pushing blond hair out of her eyes. “Is there any way to help him?” Fox asked and Beverly shrugged, “Probably not. Maybe he needs medicine or something. Doctor Reed keeps everything in there.” She pointed at the box on the wall, that now Fox was closer to it saw it was locked. She tried the key and swore softly as it didn’t fit.  
              
            She swallowed hard and looked at the boy underneath her. What if he had family? Would she be so willing to leave him to die if it were her brother or a friend laying down? She looked at the cabinet again and then searched for something heavy before stopping to move Danny, then to go back to the search. “You wouldn’t happen to know what Danny’s last name is would you?” She asked, going to a fire extinguisher. “Wimberley or something like that. Why?” She asked with wary eyes as Fox grabbed the cylinder off the wall next to her and went back to the medical cabinet. There was a moment of pause, knowing she had just got down preaching to the girl that noise was attract unwanted attention. One side of her was logical, thinking that if she saved him now he could only die later because he ran out of medicine. A lot of people would actually. Though on the other hand, she couldn’t with a sane mind leave him to die. A scary thought occurred to her and the fire extinguisher nearly fell out of her hands, _what if the nurse had been here and left him for the same reason?_ Fox spared a moment to look back at the door they had come there. It could only be locked and opened with a key. That easily settled it and she proceeded to beat the padlock with new found strength. Just because one person left someone to die didn’t mean that she would.

            The right side of the medical cabinet’s door broke off at the hinges instead of the lock itself. She paused before shaking her head, it didn’t matter; and she swung the door open. Her shoulder ached and she started to go through the medical bottles inside. She started shoving things into her hoodie pockets. Aspirin, bandages, ointments for certain things found their way inside her jacket; though she made a point of not grabbing anything that had someone’s name on it. They might come back and she would be damned if she would kill someone on accident by taking their medication. On the bottom shelf of eight, there was a syringe in a plastic covering with a label wrapped around it. She picked it up with trembling hands to read it not seeing anything else with Danny’s name on it. Fox let out a breath as she saw the pharmacist’s label. ‘Daniel Waverly’ was listed there and she repeated the name to Beverly who nodded that that was actually the name instead of the one she said earlier.

            “Alright Danny, you better wake up from this or I’m dragging your ass out of here.” She whispered ripping open the package while she kneeled beside him. Beverly watcher her with interest and moved away a bit after being shooed out of the window’s light source. Fox frowned as she rolled up his sleeve to several needle marks there though the way the veins looked it wasn’t from his medication. She glanced at Beverly, wondering what the hell she had almost made her do. A while back in middle school Health class, they showed students pictures of what drug addicts looked like after a few years of use. Their arms all looked like this if they injected. Any Doctor of Nurse would never inject a patent this hard nor would the veins underneath the skin look so pronounced.  
  
            She turned back to Beverly slowly, who was looking at her angrily. “Beverly… this isn’t Danny Waverly is it.” She asked softly, knowing something was going on here. The blond turned away and walked to a chair in the corner and sat down. “His name is Bobby.” Her voice got louder as she spoke, “And he needs to pay for what he did.” She started to talk with her hands and shook her head, “That bastard needs to pay for what he did!” Beverly stood and Fox blinked wide eyes as the blond suddenly went at her with strength she didn’t expect. Fox smacked into the wall, tumbling backward over the fire extinguisher, dropping the syringe.   
  
            Beverly snatched the syringe from the ground, “This fucking drug addict needs to die! He needs to DIE for what he did to me!” She yelled and started to stab away at the limp body before her. Fox shook her head, moving along the wall in both fear and disbelief. The entire world had lost their minds. Beverly started to stab herself, crying out how much she had loved him. Fox left the room as Beverly looked at her with tear stained eyes, “You tried to save him!” She screamed at her and rose up, the needle having broke off inside her flesh. It nearly caused her to puke at the sight of a now bloody teenager who was beyond psychotic. Fox realized she was coming at her and she grabbed the door, shutting it quickly and locking it with trembling fingers as Beverly made several screeching sounds behind the door as she beat up against it. Fox hyperventilated, looking around herself before bolting out of the office blindly.

            Was that what it did? Make people violent until they lost control and did unspeakable acts? She didn’t care, running past several lumbering bodies attracted to the noise of Beverly still screaming herself hoarse. Fox found herself crying, in pain and almost half-crazed herself. This was too much- she had been a college student earlier. Just a college student who wanted to be like her father; who was worried what she was going to cook for dinner tonight. She skidded around to another hallway and tripped over bodies, not aiding her mental state in the slightest. Fox glanced back and froze, tears rolling down her face. The hallway ahead of her was filled with the walking dead. Blood was dripping out of their open wounds that resembled bite mark. The once pale orange lockers and purple tiled floors were now stained burgundy. Her mind couldn’t connect that she was covered in blood now from her fall. Her eyes were on the two bodies she had tripped over. All she could recognize of them left were the names on the back of their jersey’s ‘Davis – 34’ and ‘Davis – 11’. Many of the undead turned to look at the new meat who let out a terrified wail, finding what she was looking for… but never what she wanted.


	4. Home

It felt like there were dark fingers reaching further and further towards her in the recesses of her mind. She didn’t want to die, but her body failed to react at this point. Her lips formed a shape to let out a scream but the only sound that came out was a mere strangled gurgle. Fox had images in her mind of her brothers being brought home as babies; her father had been deliriously happy to finally have sons. The redhead knew her brothers had grown up to be hellions to say the least but she had still loved them… Her mind absolutely refused to register the undead coming towards her, lumbering in different directs but all making the same bee-line in her direction. Some growled at each other, like they were fighting over who was going to take the first bite. There was a flicker of a thought of what she was afraid of if she wasn’t particularly scared of _dying._

            Her body went limp and she stared at her approaching death with a sort of twisted hope. If she died here, then she wouldn’t have to live in the world she’d been thrown into. She wouldn’t have to kill to survive or attack those who were just like her at one time. Fox would never have to see Kahlilia grow old and pass, if she lived that long, she would never even have to face her parents or tell them that she had failed so spectacularly to rescue her brothers. Was that her own sick way of being compassionate on herself? Didn’t she owe it to them to try and live on? But what truly was there to live for in this world where the undead were your neighbors and anyone with a pulse was on the food chain?  
  
            Perhaps the universe had the answer, because a moment late, a motorcycle engine could be heard and a tire screech on tile flooring. For some reason the sound made her body unfreeze from it’s position half kneeled to the floor and she twisted her head to see a black and pink motorcycle barrel down the hallway, sending human corpses beneath its modified tires. There was a chain in the rider’s hand that collided with heads along the way and sent them spinning off their owner’s should. Fox gaped at the rider, ducking the chain as the rider slid to a stop not far behind her and removed her helmet. She was back in her kneeled position, now looking up at the female on the bike.  
              
            There was a moment of silence as the rider raised one purple pierced eyebrow and leaned down to be eye level with the redhead. Slowly a gloved finger raised and abruptly poked Fox square in the forehead, making her let out a startled squeak. The biker leaned back up again with the hand being placed on her hip, the other holding her helmet while straddling her motorcycle. “Okay, not dead person, what’s wrong with you?” She asked like Fox was the one who had just poked _her_ in the face. Fox only worked her mouth, eyes flickering to the zombie coming up on the other woman. She spared a glance behind her before putting her helmet back on. “Come on then space cadet, get off your ass and move!”   
  
            The zombies were angered by the sound and were now moving at a much faster pace. Some nearly breaking into a sprint. “Get on!” The biker ordered and Fox immediately did, too scared to argue with her. The undead were roaring at them as the biker reared back on one tire- much to the redhead’s dislike, to smash into one of the front doors. Even though five of the six main doors were… already open. They roared out into the street and Fox looked behind her, her eyes tearing from the wind. “It figures that the first day I actually decide not to skip and come to my new school is the day the fucking zombie apocalypse happens.” She said calmly in front of Fox, who was clinging to her for dear life. Her had been a motorcycle police officer, and was extremely serious about telling his children if he ever caught them on two-wheels they’d never see the light of day.

            “I’m Cyber. Cyberious Jade. Call me Cyber though, because the latter sounds too much like that television shows space captain.” The rider yelled back and Fox could see the black and purple layered hair sticking out of the helmet from the back. “You got a name special person?” Fox had every intention of saying her name like she knew how to speak common English until Cyber hit a bump in the road at speed-limit breaking speeds for a school zone. ”F-Fox!” They were touring the schools interior fence before Cyber just decided to use a student or teacher’s car that was abandoned as a ramp. Fox let out a scream, hiding behind the other girl who looked too small to even be driving it in the first place.

            “Fox? What kind of name is that? Were you raised by wolves or like human hybrids? Wait! That’s why you aren’t infected! You’re a fox human! That’s cool!” Fox’s eyes bulged looking at her and though she couldn’t see it, knew that her rider was grinning from ear to ear. “Are you fucking high?!” She screamed over the wind. There was giggle, “Of course o’ LightBright is! Cause I’m bright and I like to light! Where are you going by the way? I’ll drop you off.” Fox buried her head in her shoulder, scared of the abandoned cars flying past them on the highway and now knowing her driver was so high she needed permission to land. “23rd Elm’s Street, and please don’t jump another car!”

 ~~~  
  
            They continued down the highway leading away from the school Fox had spent most of her younger years in. She very rarely peaked up from where she was hiding behind the smaller woman. Cars were scattered all around her like discarded toys of a toddler that didn’t know how to take care of them. It made her sick to her stomach, knowing that one point each car had at least one person inside it before everything went to hell. Cyber took a quick turn away from a herd of undead in the middle of the highway, clawing at a car that had its alarm going off. The bike lifted off the pavement for a moment and bounced once, and she went onto a sidewalk to get around a traffic jam. It took a lot longer than Fox originally thought it would to get home, but knew it would have been a lot worse on foot.   
  
            Cyber skidded to a halt when they turned into 23rd Elm’s and Fox’s breath caught in her throat. “Whoa… this doesn’t look promising at all.” She commented dryly and Fox slowly got off the bike, her legs were shaking from their ride together. The neighborhood was practically a ghost town now. West Wellington Gorge even had the tumbleweeds to complete the look that rolled in from the outskirts of town. There were absolutely no cars in the driveways or on the side of the road. Fox didn’t spare a glance back at the girl on the bike, whispering a very soft, “Thank you,” before walking toward what remained of her house. If she had been in a better state of mind, she would have heard Cyber sigh before the motorcycle started up and drove away back the way they had come. Her chest felt like stone as she kept walking toward her home where the windows were broken out and there was a small yet somehow contained fire on her front yard. Her shoes felt like the pavement burned beneath them and the smell of burnt rubber was practically tattooed inside her nostrils. Her timid walk suddenly broke out into a run.

            Fox’s front door came into view and she paused, feeling for the key in her pocket for a moment before realizing it was no longer there. She had no idea where she had lost it and wasn’t going to waste time looking for it. Her father never left keys outside and she looked at the broken window beside the front door with a tight throat. It only took a moment to pick up a rock and bust out the glass that remained on the edge of the window before hauling herself up and into her own house. Fox dropped down into the very torn apart living room and swallowed at the silence that surrounded her. It was so quiet that she could hear the blood rushing in her ear. The kitchen connected to the living room off the main entrance hall. With a soft intake of breath, she moved toward it. Hand brushing the wall with shaking fingers to see the kitchen was completely trashed. The fridge was holding on by half unscrewed bolts- like someone had nearly ripped it off at its hinges. She held her breath suddenly, hearing something move in the back of the house where the dining was. The rooms were connected via the entrance hall; but she stopped before investigating the noise.

            Fox, quietly as she could, pulled out the storage drawer on her side of the kitchen, reaching underneath the counter inside of it to pull out her mother’s 9-millimeter Glock. It had been an anniversary present a few years ago and had her name engraved onto the side. Thankfully she knew how to check for ammo and checked it, her hands still vibrating slightly. There were tiny spots of floor she now noticed and immediately swallowed hard at the thought of what or _whom_ they could be from. She turned the safety off, glad that her mother had started to keep it loaded after all of her children had grown up enough to realize not to shoot themselves with it. Her sneakers crunched on glass scattered around the floor from she assumed the living room window.

            She found out she was wrong after that, finding more and more windows smashed as she went. Whether it had been from sound, people attacking the house, or something different, she couldn’t tell at all. There was a lump in her throat as she turned every corner very carefully. The dining room table was turned over and the patio doors were shattered as well. Paintings that her mother had spent hours working on when they had first moved into the house were splattered with blood. Her eyes widened as a smell hit her and she gagged. The more time she spent looking the more the gun shivered in her hands from her nerves. “Mommy?” She whispered, not caring how it sounded. She just wanted to see her mother at this point. Her voice was soft, but it was enough to scare was making a rustling sound behind the dining room table. Fox nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the neighbor’s tabby cat hiss and let out a burst of speed away from her. It went into her parent’s bedroom where her father was bedridden.

            “Daddy?” She called softly, knowing it was nearly impossible for him to leave the house without an ambulance at this point. Pictures of her family stared back at her as she walked toward the bedroom slowly. Her father, Jonathan Davis, had stage four lung cancer from smoking all of his life. Which had been drilled into her and her siblings to never do what he did. The memory of her youngest brother bringing home a pack of cigarettes from school had made her father practically lose his mind. Fox had never been brave enough to disobey her father… in anything. “Dad?” She asked again, throat nearly closing all together when she pushed the door open to the bedroom. There was a puddle of blood as soon as she opened the door.

            The smell was the first horrible thing, realizing why it was there was the next. Her father lay in his bed, just like she had left him this morning. Only now his body was mangled and ripped apart, his mouth twisted in a dying scream and eyes wide enough to nearly rip from their sockets. Fox doubled over, dry heaving onto the floor and tears ran down her face. She had to move. She had to get away. She had to find her mother. She felt a little part of her fade as she turned away, having to remind herself that she had already come to terms with her father dying. This had just been a much crueler and much more horrible way to have him go. She made it back out into the dining room, sucking in the less putrid air. All of this had happened in the matter of maybe four or five hours- perhaps a little more. A hand went across her face and she withdrew it, grimacing realizing she still had blood on her from when she had fallen to the ground earlier. There was a creak in the floorboards and she dismissed it, thinking the cat was trying to come back to see if I had left yet.

            There was another loud hiss, but this time it came with a crash from the kitchen. It dawned on her that she had been making far too much noise if the house had been overrun from the… Her eyes found blood trails on the ground, and looked where the glass was angled. The house had been attacked, yes, but the more recent damage was much more internal. Quickly she returned to the bedroom, glancing back in fear. Fox went to her father’s bedside, covering her nose with what she could of her shirt and searched through his things for the key to the gun rack in her parent’s closet. Fox spared a moment to close her father’s eyes before going to the little cache of weapons. There was a pause before she went to her mother’s bedside table to look for her car keys. If she was lucky, they would be gone and her mother was somewhere safe… She loved her Malibu far too much to leave it behind; but yet again, she was terrified to find them still neatly inside the recycled ashtray turned catch-all.

            A brief sigh as she kept the keys anyway. The car she could use if it had gas in it. Not to mention it had a key to the police station on its ring. Her father had given it to her for emergencies since she was one of the head volunteers at one time too. There was another hiss from the room just beyond and she froze as it was in the dining room instead of the kitchen now. The cat let out a screech and something else crashed. Fox had nearly forgotten she was holding the Glock in her hand as she walked slowly out of the bedroom and looked for the source of the noise.  
  
            The cat was nowhere to be found and Fox let out a soft call, “Mom?” She yelled against her better judgement. There was another door to the kitchen that lead into a storage area where they kept the freezer with meats inside of it. She pushed the swinging door open, stepping inside to see the freezer open. “Mommy?”  
  
            The figure in front of her made a gurgling sound in front of her, meat from the freezer hanging from it’s jaws and claw like fingers. Her eyes were sunken and filmed over, unseeing of her only daughter. “Oh god-“ Fox whispered taking a step back as the monster that had once been her mother let out a growl. Half of her blouse was dyed red with blood, “Mom- Mom?!” She kept whispering as her back hit the swinging door that only swung one direction. A catlike hiss and her hands dropped the meat that was too cold for her teeth to sink to choose the warm flesh in front of her. There was a human rib sticking out of one of her hands that was too tight to unclench. “No!” Fox shook her head as she saw it, “You- You did that to Dad?!” It made it too overwhelming; the emotions running through her mind. Her mother lunged and she raised the gun without thinking, turning her face away to pull the trigger.


	5. The Biker

Her eyes blinked slowly open, slit yellow eyes being the first things she could focus on. The cat stared down at her, making a purring sound as she licked her noise with a sandpaper like tongue. She briefly wondered if she had left the window open and the cat must had just followed the tree outside into the room that it nearly connected to. The cat mewed again and jumped down, leaving her eyes to follow it out the bedroom door. Fox took a deep breath and gagged at the smell of rotting flesh. A hand came over her mouth when she coughed and she stopped short, staring at the blood on her hands. This was not a nightmare. Something heavy sat in her other hand and she looked at it.

            As soon as she saw the gun, she dropped it like it was snake and it clunked onto the floor just as heavily. The cat hissed from outside the room and there was a sound as it bolted away to some unknown hole that it could now live in. It acted like it knew that she was a murderer and Fox let out a shaking breath. She could see the blood splattered on it and left into the hallway bathroom, seeing blood splatter across her face. She touched it to find it dry enough not to streak with the movement of her fingers. There was a wall clock that read the time told her it was almost four in the morning.

            The redhead did the mental calculation, knowing she had left her college around three because the class was halfway over when everything had gone to hell. Adding all the running around it couldn’t be that time already… She looked her watch after pulling up her hoodie sleeve, seeing a large crack on it. It had frozen on the time she had been hit by the car. Her heard hurt and she left the safety of the small bathroom to sit in the chair of her bedroom, ignoring the smell from downstairs. The memories of today, or rather yesterday at this point, burnt their images into her mind. She refused to put too much thought in the idea that her parents were dead downstairs, her younger brothers were among the undead probably at the high school, her grandparents were all undoubtedly dead in their senior home by this point, and her best friend was more than likely dead too. She swallowed heavily, wondering if there was really anything to live for anymore.  
  
            Or maybe… she did have something to live for. “I’m unbelievable!” She hissed at herself.

            Her entire family was dead and she was thinking about how they were all better off now. How she had wished for herself to be free of the burden of her family so long and now it had finally come true. Fox threw one of the little figurines across the room that she had gotten from a friend when she was in middle school. It shattered against the wall mirror she had behind the door and shattered it to pieces. The reflection seemed to focus purposely on her; her bloody clothing, her bloody face, the look in her eye. _“This isn’t happening to me.”_ She thought to herself, walking out of the bedroom and picked her spare backpack from the closet. _“They didn’t have to die this way.”_ Fox was throwing things into her backpack. Jeans, undergarments, t-shirts, her only good sports jacket from where she played baseball. _“I would trade anything in the world to have them back…”_ Fox kneeled slowly and picked the gun off the floor and stared at it, rubbing the engraved ‘Martha J. Davis’ on the side to get the red out of the grooves. _“Why did this happen to us?”_ There was a quick intake of breath, as she placed the gun beside the backpack before walking into the bathroom to have probably the last shower she’d ever get in the darkness of the night. _“I refuse to die like they did.”_  
  
~~~

            An hour later she was ready in new clothing, a bandage around her shoulder and a backpack on the other. She held the gun in one hand as she opened the door to her room. There was a moment that she wondered if she should say goodbye to the house that had been her home for all of her life. But dismissed the thought soon after, walking past the boy’s shared room. Each step lifted some sort of weight off her as her free hand traced the banister. She refused to look at the kitchen where her mother’s arm was just peeking out of the swinging door in the open. Instead she went to where she knew she needed to go, scooping the abandoned gun rack keys from the ground. The moment she walked into her parent’s bedroom they connected with her father’s automatically and she let out a long sigh, and shut her eyes. Fox went to the closet, and shut the door behind her just in case.

            She filled her backpack with all the 9-millimeter ammo her father had stocked, and find a thigh holster that her mother had thought was ‘sexy’ at one point and fit the Glock snuggly in. In the end, she had to find another bag to put the rest of the guns into it. All the knives went into it as well. With the keys stuck between her teeth as she shouldered the door open and stopped short at the zombies in the street. All the noise she had created drew them closer to the area and now she had a very large problem to deal with among so many little ones. What if she got to the car and there was no gas in it? What if she fumbled the keys? Fox held her breath as none of them turned immediately toward her, being more focused on the others around them that were making more noise than she was.

            Her head snapped around, quickly looking for anything that might be close to get a handful of her clothing. The car door was unlocked and she let out a breath of relief that might have strangled her. That meant her mother was nearly out the door for class when things had happened… or she had at least tried to escape. The dead were on the driver’s side door and she swallowed, pushing her bags of weaponry into the backseat from the passengers very slowly without too much sound. And in the same motion, pulled her legs inside the vehicle and closed the car door. It seemed to awaken one or two and they began sniffing at the car, looking for the source of what caused the car to bounce a little. Like a fly, caught in a spiders web. It took all her willpower to ease herself into the driver’s side- even closer to the zombies.   
  
            “I’m not going to die here.” Fox whispered and started the car. It seemed to both alarm and anger the undead around her. She would have liked to watch them- figure out what really did attract them and what they did in certain situations. But the house was already breached, and she didn’t have a single place to go that was safe… besides the police station. They would have riot gear, food, shelter… that was the safest place. Her hand went to her mother’s spare key in her pocket and swallowed as they sniffed hard at the window and growled. She shifted the car into reverse and immediately ignored the sickening crunches that were undoubtedly once her neighbors. The zombies roared, giving chase and she stomped the gas pedal after changing gears again.

            The car jumped forward and she was forced to recall everything she had learned in Driver’s Education. She had gotten her green card by the skin of her teeth, everything else though had been a mess and thus she’d never actually gotten her driver’s license. The Malibu roared as she sped down a mailman’s side road, seeing the said government worker not too far down the lane with a pack of dogs pulling meat from it’s bones. For some reason the thought of animals reminded her of the cat at her home. It would be fine, if it didn’t eat any of the undead. The cat would probably be the last living thing in the neighborhood, and suddenly she regretted leaving it. It would have plenty of cat food and mice, things to eat- unlike her. She had wanted to get the spare food from the cabinet but didn’t… didn’t want to look at her mother again. The police station was her best bet at this point; and hopefully it wasn’t overrun.

             Midway to the police station, she decided going against the main routes was a very good idea. People had abandoned their cars on lawns, ditches, and sometimes inside houses. She was lucky to know the streets as well as she did; when she was too young to be left at him and her mother was working almost around the clock at the hospital, her father would take her on more tame patrols. It made her chest ache again and she tightened her grip on the steering wheel to keep herself in check.

            Not fifteen minutes later, she was ‘more or less’ parked in front of the police station, watching the undead wander around aimlessly. There was only one or two there, but she had no idea if they could hear or see her just yet. True, the hearing was a factor. But was sight? Could they only see motion or were they completely blind? The two sniffed, but didn’t do much else without the stimuli to act towards it. One had a sheriff’s uniform on, with his face so badly mutilated she wouldn’t have been able to tell if she knew him or not. Which in retrospect, she probably preferred. The other was an elderly lady, dragging her leg behind her. Fox didn’t really want to play scientist at the moment, but if she was going to get in- which the building still looked structurally sound from the front at least- she needed to know what she was up against.

            She picked up one of her brother’s marbles from when they were children. It had been left in the center console since they were about five years old. Fox was so carefully rolling down the window it took almost a full two minutes to get it halfway down to where she could throw the marble as hard as she could against the stone wall of the building not a few feet away. The zombies immediately reacted and started running toward it, then started trying to walk through the brick by repeatedly clawing or beating their faces against it.

            The window was rolled up and she sat back, swallowing her gagging reflex. So the zombies couldn’t see… or feel, from the way they were banging their heads against the wall. God, did they smell… or was that… There was a rancid smell in the back of the car and she paused, looking in the back to find a banana peel that smelt as bad as the zombies did almost. “Thanks, boys…” She whispered as she tossed it out after another slow moving window shield session and then rolled it up quickly as the zombies immediately went toward that as well. Zombies were blind, or they would have seen her do that. Unfeeling, or they wouldn’t have been ramming themselves into the building. But they certainly weren’t deaf and their smelling abilities were unbelievable. Fox wasn’t going to try and see if their sense of taste and intelligence were still intact though.

            The thought of trying to get a zombie to put blocks through the right hole of a kindergarten toy made her smile to herself. After a few minutes of the two zombies fighting over the banana on the ground, she took her backpack from the back, emptied it, and put a few rounds for the rifle and the Glock back into it but not nearly as many as she was carrying around. Now that she had a chance to look at it, two rifles that were older than she was, a slightly bent shotgun, a few basic knives and a Glock were not the best things to have against hordes the size of the one in her old neighborhood.  She swallowed and swinging the backpack onto her shoulder before stepping out with a rifle in one hand and the keys in the other. She left the rotten fruit to distract them for the time being and got to the front door without a problem. The building was still locked, much to her relief. Though that didn’t mean a thing for the other doors, but it was a good sign to say the least. There was a pause as Fox rethought the idea of a rifle in closed spaces and slung it over her free shoulder and removed the Glock from the side holster. Her father’s desk wasn’t too far away and she walked through the main hall.

            It was eerie, to see a building that she had never once in her life seen empty. The police department’s symbol for Wellington Gorge was in the center of the marble floor. She let out a slow breath, heading past the door to the offices, listening for any sign of movement. Why was everyone gone? All called out in the panic? There should have been someone left behind to watch the station, right? Fox put the backpack on top of the desk her father had occupied for nearly twenty years and stopped short of the golden name plate. Fox frowned and picked it up, looking at the name that certainly wasn’t her fathers. She felt a rush of anger through her. They had replaced him before he had even died?! What if he had come back, or- The idea quieted her mind. Everyone knew that her father wasn’t coming back. Not because he was now dead, but because the simple fact was that if the zombies hadn’t killed him, the cancer would have in probably the same amount of time. It didn’t stop her from being angry though. Very few of the officers had come to see her father in his final days. Sure, there had been a lot in the beginning; but as time went on, more and more people dropped away. Saying the same thing, “If you ever need anything.” Fox made a face at it, tossing the name plate away and started to go through what remained of her father’s belongings in the desk. It wasn’t much, whoever the person was who took over only kept the valuables… like her father’s watch, which she immediately strapped to her own wrist. She heard movement behind her in the direction she had thrown the nameplate carelessly. A deputy shambled out and Fox felt a cold fury take over as she saw the nametag read the same name she had just read. ‘G. Montgomery.’

            It lunged and she shot, hitting him between the eyes and she stared at the body in disgust; for him as a person, and for the zombie goop leaking out of the newly created hole. She let out a breath and looked for the supply and gun cage. It used to be in the basement, but who knew how much it had changed. Fox knew the police station like the back of her hand too, having played underneath her father’s desk with his handcuffs and her dolls. She paused at the steps, swallowing at the darkness below. Immediately afterward she scolded herself for thinking it was too dangerous. Her entire life had been shattered and _now_ she was worried about putting herself in harm’s way. With her backpack still on her father’s desk, she made her way down to flick on the lights at the bottom. Fully prepared for a horde to be hissing at her, her sneakers made clunking sounds on the steps before she flicked the lights on.

            Absolutely nothing and she let out a startled, but happy breath. The key to the gun cages around the corner. There were keys on a rack above the light switch and she took the smallest one that she had seen so many officers use in her young life. She took the last few steps and froze as she heard rattling. There was a brief thought of how many times she had stopped to hold her breath that day, but it faded away with the sound of more harsh rattling. Fox stepped as lightly as she could, peaking around the corner to a long hallway. At the end, there was a light illuminating where the gun cage was along with several of their vehicles for SWAT. There were multiple rooms connected to the hallway too. Locker rooms, interrogation rooms… nothing that she thought would be useful at this very moment.

            When she turned she almost let out a cry of joy seeing another human there. Then she shrank back, thinking that a live human could be even more dangerous than a dead one. Fox swallowed, listening to the person let out a scream and start kicking the gun cage over and over. After a few moments of staring at her from afar, she moved toward her, gun still partially raised. The woman was pissed and kept kicking the fence around the gun cage so hard it was starting to dent permanently. As she approached she could see the black and purple hair from the back and raised her eyebrows. The biker was much shorter than she remembered, and she had removed her black riding leather pants for a skirt. “Cyber?” Fox mouthed before smiling. The same woman who had saved her life was in front of her. She didn’t want to startle her, so she giggled the keys in her hand. “These might help.” She said allowed after the girl had frozen, then turned around to look at her.

            Her blue eyes met Fox’s green ones as she jingled the keys again. She crossed her arms in front of her, then stalked over to me, snatching the keys from her hand then walked back to unlock the cage. “I looked for these keys for almost two damn hours and you come up out of nowhere with them!” She pursed her lips and unlocked it before turning around to look at Fox. There was a pause before she cocked her head to the side, “Did you find what you were looking for?” She asked and Fox looked at her shoes, licking her lips. “Yeah… I found them.”

            She frowned, nodding before going to rip apart the gun cage. Fox watched her pick out some rifles, shotguns and pistols. “So how did you end up here?” The redhead asked the smaller, only to have her shrug, “It’s a police station, Foxy. I ended up here the same way you did.” The taller answered softly, “I doubt that.” Glancing around at the extra bags as she replied, then started to help her fill the bags.

            It was strange how Cyber and Fox immediately worked well together. They packed all the bags they could find and hurried up the stairs. The tinier of the two checked the windows while Fox looked around for keys to a better armored vehicle below. Her mother’s car was wonderful, yes, but it had taken serious damage in the last zombie ‘hit and run’ to the back tires. The police station always had pick-up trucks in the back for major snow seasons or when they had to go out into the forests for search and rescues with hounds.  The tires were reinforced, as were everything else on the truck for heavy hail storms. It would be a lot better to use one of those than a half beaten up seven year old Malibu. Cyber interrupted her thoughts as she looked back at her from across the room since she had found the keys. She stopped, holding her gaze.

            Through diplomacy, they had divided the bags between them and had even found a snack machine to pillage. Silence fell between them and Fox asked a bit more timidly than she would have liked to admit. “So… what now?” Fox asked, Cyber glanced at the pistols in her new side holsters that were still laying on her father’s desk. Fox glanced at them as well; could she be thinking about double-crossing her? She knew if she were in her position, and technically she was, she would most certainly be thinking about it. But not to let the situation get out of hand to quickly she cleared her throat, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “There are pick-ups outside; plenty of room for food, ammo, weapons… maybe even a motorcycle.”

            Fox had a moment where she wasn’t certain she should ask Cyber, someone she didn’t really know all that well, to travel with her to… to who knew where. She had an uncle on her mother’s side that used to be in the military. Fox’s family went to see him every Thanksgiving and Easter. It would be a good place to start… Cyber might have been going a different direction though. The smaller stared at her for a full thirty-seconds. Her hair was sticking out in different directions and Fox now noticed now that they were staring at each other, Cyber’s hair wasn’t just black and purple, but had hot pinks and reds mixed into it. Her skirt was red plaid, knee-high riding boots and a gray tank-top with a blood splattered white dress shirt over it that was practically ripped into pieces. The only thing that didn’t looked completely destroyed was the skirt and the leather jacket she was wearing.

            “You’re asking me to come with you?” She asked slowly, and Fox shrugged like she didn’t care. There was a moment where she didn’t want to seem weaker than she was, and she shifted again from foot to foot. “Where are you going, Foxy?” There was a frowned and she replied, “Just Fox… I don’t have a general direction. My uncle lives West of here. But if you have some place better then I’m willing to follow.” She didn’t want to see her uncle… telling him that she had shot her own mother and his sister, failing to save her father and brothers… He wouldn’t be able to look her in the eye ever again. “Right now I’m just trying to think of ways to survive. Safety in numbers right?”   
  
            Cyber grinned and picked up a bag, tossing it at Fox for her to catch it with a grunt. “Well Foxy, what took you so long! ‘Course I’ll come with you! You know, the last good conversation I had was with this basketball. I named him Wally.” Fox’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline as she picked up another bag. “Uh… great, I guess we should go?” She suddenly she jumped on her back and Fox groaned, falling forward. They ended up entangled on the floor and Fox shot her an exasperated look in her direction as Cyber let out a yell, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Foxy!” The redhead let out a sigh- then a whimper as she felt a boot dig into her lower back. “It’s Fox…”  
  
_“What in the hell did I just get myself in to?”_


End file.
